


Replay Value

by pseudoactual_mahou



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, a demon experiences something superficially resembling joy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4976164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudoactual_mahou/pseuds/pseudoactual_mahou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cycle plays itself out endlessly along a set route, monsters entering and exiting like actors -- fading into the background or dust on the wind. Until a little detail shifts.</p><p>Even bad kids can have fun exploring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Replay Value

“Blank” isn’t the right word for the human, and "flat affect" isn't the right phrase — flat and blank is a sheet of paper; it _could_ be meaningful, given time and effort and ink (nice friends, good food, bad laughs). If Sans were a little more lyrical, he might call theirs an “obliterated affect” — like a skull left in the middle of a desert for years, its last leer scoured away by blistering heat and alien wind, slowly integrating into the remains of everything else in the endless blasted expanse. That kind of not-a-face. That kind of gait, like they’d be dead if they ever sat down. A time traveler’s look.

Sans should know: he’s the best temporal psychologist in the underground, and perhaps the only one, now that Gaster’s gone (for certain values of “gone”). Might’ve written a paper, back when it had the potential to matter — and if he’d had the chance, the human would be in textbooks, next to the words “BAD NEWS.”

They’re dusty, too, coughing occasionally — not just from the cold, but throwing off great gasping puffs of light gray. The Ruins are old, sure, and ill-maintained, and there are perfectly innocent reasons that a human child might be covered in something nearly indistinguishable from monster remains, but there are risks not worth taking, even if it’d save work.

So he watches them from the woods. Pausing at strange intervals — to examine a heavy stick in the road they’d passed without a thought, and later at a point where two tall trees stand side by side — in fits and starts they arrive at the gates, such as they are. Then they turn, as if expecting someone to catch up, which is when Sans’s eye lights on the other side of the checkpoint and a psyche like a hammer descends upon a bridge that was suspended mostly by prayer when it was _new_. The useless bars of the checkpoint gate splinter and spit with wood chips, ground down under omnidirectional pressure, and in a few moments the whole screaming mass of the thing, its wood tinged cobalt, is a creaking mess embedded halfway down the pit. The human’s turned by this point, and Sans can see their expression — or lack of it — as everything slides downwards, slowly. A foot — two — and it gives up the ghost entirely, tumbling downwards towards a bed of lightless snow.

“sorry,” Sans says, watching them for the telltale light of a human SOUL ( _neon but clean, soft_ , Gaster said, _think of it like the light of the cavern ceiling through glass_ , but he can’t pick it out with his eyes — best to go for a wide angle shot then -- the Gaster Blasters can handle it). “couldn’t risk it this time. if you’re not a crazed spree killer, I ‘ l l   f e e l   b a d   l a t e r.” Soften it with a joke, maybe, before he fires, dusts them against the ruin door (or equivalent for water-based organisms — squelch them, maybe). Kids like jokes, though he doesn’t expect much out of the human. Tunnel-vision eyes, flat mouth...

…little beads of wetness? Snowdin snow doesn’t melt that quickly; these are thick, fat flakes, hardy Fimbülwinter stock. Or are those — and as the beads swell and Sans detects a low noise from the human — the kid, of course, he should’ve been able to tell by the striped shirt — he realizes that yes, they’re tears. Tears, alright, are unexpected. Tears welling at the corners of eyes that are widening, taking in the panorama of dense impassable trees and skeleton and pit and Sans is recalling that temporal psychology is not an _exact_ science, because the emotionless anomalous berserker child is about to cry and ah god dammit he is going to owe someone a burger after this. Sans quickly dismisses the Gaster Blasters before they can screw this up any worse, then _folds_ over the bridge with his hands already in placating position,  sweat beaded on his forehead. “h-hey, uh, i didnt mean —"

The human _lunges_ , and Sans has just enough time to think the word “japed” reflexively before his brain shuts down in preparation for dusting, an inevitability that still hasn’t occurred in a second and yet when he opens his eyes he is in a wholly unexpected situation — the human is _dancing_ with him, hands gripping skeletal hands, whirling him in some demented chipmunk-speed waltz made all the more unnerving by its apparent total sincerity.

Most of all, it’s the smile — the wide, froggy smile of absolute enthusiasm — that throws him. It’s a look he can imagine on Undyne, facing down some hapless nobody in single combat, anticipating some _good clean fun_.

They let go, eventually, still smiling and panting a little, and he staggers a few steps back, watching their hands for a knife, their heavy-lidded eyes — streaked with thin gray effluvia that is, yes, mixed snow, salted human tears and _dust_ , implying some sort of serious error either now or earlier — for aggression. Nothing. 

*** Thank you so much.**

It’s a strange voice — resonant and clear with no traceable accent, but halting, hesitant, as if it isn’t used to selecting its own words. Predestiny leaves grooves in speech patterns, and Sans knows it: the child is grasping at letters and syntax, things that haven’t been an effort for it in — who knows? Might’ve been subjective months, or years, or lifetimes. (There are no other temporal psychologists. Someday, he was planning to write a paper.) “…”, Sans doesn’t say. If it’s possible, he’d like to leverage this development, figure out what broke their composure — and keep his promise.

(Nice food, bad laughs, good friends might be on the table again. Going to Grillby’s and the MTT Hotel restaurant during breaks, pulling pranks on Papyrus and each other, stopping the anomaly with a good time rather than a bad one. It’s a nice dream.)

*** There's more to do now. Do you understand?  
* The bridge has never collapsed.  
* Haven’t finished yet! No trigger! No fun or datamining!**

It’s almost babble, the way it hits his ears, more like an impression than sound — but at least he finds his voice. “look, i don’t want to, uh, rattle your bones, kid, but if —“ at which point the human whoops and hurtles headlong into the pit, clattering off a plank embedded in one face before vanishing into the darkness. For a moment, he fumbles with his Blue Attack, eye flashing, but can’t get a line-of-sight lock — and the moment of hesitation means he can’t aim the Gaster Blasters, or lash out with his bones — not that he tries, of course. But that it isn’t an option is a concern. There’s nowhere to _fold_ down there, either.

The fallen child is gone, and Sans hasn’t figured anything out… so. Next order of business:

“…i’m going to grillby’s." 


End file.
